


paris is lonely when you can't die

by Murf1307



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Compliant, M/M, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-18
Updated: 2014-03-18
Packaged: 2018-01-16 04:01:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1331158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Murf1307/pseuds/Murf1307
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grantaire is a vampire sired by Antoine-Jean Gros.</p>
            </blockquote>





	paris is lonely when you can't die

**Author's Note:**

> written on october 14, 2013.

He remembers too much, he thinks — he has an artist’s eye and mind trained by decades, trapped in a body that was, what, twenty-six?  twenty seven?  when his master, his Sire approached him first in a little Parisian dive on the eve of ‘89.

He knows what Saint-Just looked like, can call up the exact expression of the man’s face as he climbed the Thermidorean scaffolding, can and has sketched it a dozen times over only to destroy it, because it is far too accurate to be believable.

Antoine goes on about believeability.  If they’re too good, he says, they’ll be found out for what they are.  Part of him wants to be, part of him yearns for it.

Because after all, what can men do about true monsters in their midst?  Monsters fed on the blood of still more ancient monsters until the sun treats them the way it would any man whose blood was still his own — they cannot  _kill_  him, nor Antoine, not with fire, not with gunshot or sword or anything at all.

Antoine knew the Court of the Sun King, and then he dallied with Napoleon, claimed to love him.

_"Never so much as you, dear heart, but by all the gods, do I love him — he is human, he is doomed, and he is a great man, my dear.  We must always keep watch on great men."_

So when Grantaire finds a man seemingly made of gold and bronze, a living classical statue, an Achilles who could almost make his heart beat, he almost believes Antoine, for just a moment.  Just long enough to watch, to cloak himself in things that are far too true to be a mask —

— there is a young one in the slums, who in less than five years has amassed a network of criminals and corrupt policemen so massive that his moniker,  _Claquesous_  is the byword equal to that of his entirely human boy-assassin, called by the name of the Quarter that created them, and he has seen this boy and lifted  _Claquesous_ 's petticoats, said  _Mam’selle_  and  _Monsieur_  in equal measure to him (he cannot pretend to understand but they are not for understanding, he and Claquesous and Antoine, the three creatures in Paris who will outlive all) and Claquesous knows masks almost as well as he does —

and he becomes the friend of the Friends of the ABC, of the debased, and he watches them welcome doom.  He drowns himself in wine, in absinthe, in blood occasionally when he needs it, and he watches them.

It is on days when his Achilles stares at him, proud and disdainful, days when he goes too far and is cast impermanently from the ferment, when he returns to the atelier and Antoine asks to paint him.

He refuses.

He chose this for a reason; he does not want to be remembered, and he does not want to remember the one thing that the years have allowed him to forget — his own face, which he had so hated.

There are nights when Antoine begs,  _"My child, please, just let me give you your face; you are so beautiful tonight._ ”

He still refuses, because Antoine does not see beauty, but sees power and sorrow — the latter of which he possesses in abundance, so it is only natural that Antoine would want to commit his ugliness to paper or canvas.

One night, he does not return to the atelier.  One morning, he rises from the floor of the Corinthé to see Achilles crucified upon the wall.

And he sits down and sketches him, briefly, a last memory.

He does not return to Antoine; he fears that this time, he will allow Antoine to paint him.

And that would be too much.


End file.
